“Hello! there's Milial!” said somebody near me. I looked at the man who
had been pointed out as I had been wishing for a long time to meet this
Don Juan.
He was no longer young. His gray hair looked a little like those fur
bonnets worn by certain Northern peoples, and his long beard, which fell
down over his chest, had also somewhat the appearance of fur. He was
talking to a lady, leaning toward her, speaking in a low voice and
looking at her with an expression full of respect and tenderness.
I knew his life, or at least as much as was known of it. He had loved
madly several times, and there had been certain tragedies with which his
name had been connected. When I spoke to women who were the loudest in
his praise, and asked them whence came this power, they always answered,
after thinking for a while: “I don't know--he has a certain charm about
him.”
He was certainly not handsome. He had none of the elegance that we
ascribe to conquerors of feminine hearts. I wondered what might be his
hid den charm. Was it mental? I never had heard of a clever saying of
his. In his glance? Perhaps. Or in his voice? The voices of some beings
have a certain irresistible attraction, almost suggesting the flavor of
things good to eat. One is hungry for them, and the sound of their words
penetrates us like a dainty morsel. A friend was passing. I asked him:
“Do you know Monsieur Milial?”
“Yes.”
“Introduce us.”
A minute later we were shaking hands and talking in the doorway. What he
said was correct, agreeable to hear; it contained no irritable thought.
The voice was sweet, soft, caressing, musical; but I had heard others
much more attractive, much more moving. One listened to him with
pleasure, just as one would look at a pretty little brook. No tension of
the mind was necessary in order to follow him, no hidden meaning aroused
curiosity, no expectation awoke interest. His conversation was rather
restful, but it did not awaken in one either a desire to answer, to
contradict or to approve, and it was as easy to answer him as it was to
listen to him. The response came to the lips of its own accord, as soon
as he had finished talking, and phrases turned toward him as if he had
naturally aroused them.
One thought soon struck me. I had known him for a quarter of an hour,
and it seemed as if he were already one of my old friends, that I had
known all about him for a long time; his face, his gestures, his voice,
his ideas. Suddenly, after a few minutes of conversation, he seemed
already to be installed in my intimacy. All constraint disappeared
between us, and, had he so desired, I might have confided in him as one
confides only in old friends.
Certainly there was some mystery about him. Those barriers that are
closed between most people and that are lowered with time when sympathy,
similar tastes, equal intellectual culture and constant intercourse
remove constraint--those barriers seemed not to exist between him and
me, and no doubt this was the case between him and all people, both men
and women, whom fate threw in his path.
After half an hour we parted, promising to see each other often, and he
gave me his address after inviting me to take luncheon with him in two
days.
I forgot what hour he had stated, and I arrived too soon; he was not yet
home. A correct and silent domestic showed me into a beautiful, quiet,
softly lighted parlor. I felt comfortable there, at home. How often I
have noticed the influence of apartments on the character and on the
mind! There are some which make one feel foolish; in others, on the
contrary, one always feels lively. Some make us sad, although well
lighted and decorated in light-colored furniture; others cheer us up,
although hung with sombre material. Our eye, like our heart, has
its likes and dislikes, of which it does not inform us, and which it
secretly imposes on our temperament. The harmony of furniture, walls,
the style of an ensemble, act immediately on our mental state, just as
the air from the woods, the sea or the mountains modifies our physical
natures.
I sat down on a cushion-covered divan and felt myself suddenly carried
and supported by these little silk bags of feathers, as if the outline
of my body had been marked out beforehand on this couch.
Then I looked about. There was nothing striking about the room;
every-where were beautiful and modest things, simple and rare furniture,
Oriental curtains which did not seem to come from a department store but
from the interior of a harem; and exactly opposite me hung the portrait
of a woman. It was a portrait of medium size, showing the head and the
upper part of the body, and the hands, which were holding a book. She
was young, bareheaded; ribbons were woven in her hair; she was smiling
sadly. Was it because she was bareheaded, was it merely her natural
expression? I never have seen a portrait of a lady which seemed so much
in its place as that one in that dwelling. Of all those I knew I have
seen nothing like that one. All those that I know are on exhibition,
whether the lady be dressed in her gaudiest gown, with an attractive
headdress and a look which shows that she is posing first of all before
the artist and then before those who will look at her or whether they
have taken a comfortable attitude in an ordinary gown. Some are standing
majestically in all their beauty, which is not at all natural to them in
life. All of them have something, a flower or, a jewel, a crease in the
dress or a curve of the lip, which one feels to have been placed there
for effect by the artist. Whether they wear a hat or merely their hair
one can immediately notice that they are not entirely natural. Why? One
cannot say without knowing them, but the effect is there. They seem to
be calling somewhere, on people whom they wish to please and to whom
they wish to appear at their best advantage; and they have studied their
attitudes, sometimes modest, Sometimes haughty.
What could one say about this one? She was at home and alone. Yes, she
was alone, for she was smiling as one smiles when thinking in solitude
of something sad or sweet, and not as one smiles when one is being
watched. She seemed so much alone and so much at home that she made
the whole large apartment seem absolutely empty. She alone lived in it,
filled it, gave it life. Many people might come in and converse, laugh,
even sing; she would still be alone with a solitary smile, and she alone
would give it life with her pictured gaze.
That look also was unique. It fell directly on me, fixed and caressing,
without seeing me. All portraits know that they are being watched, and
they answer with their eyes, which see, think, follow us without leaving
us, from the very moment we enter the apartment they inhabit. This one
did not see me; it saw nothing, although its look was fixed directly on
me. I remembered the surprising verse of Baudelaire:
And your eyes, attractive as those of a portrait.
They did indeed attract me in an irresistible manner; those painted eyes
which had lived, or which were perhaps still living, threw over me a
strange, powerful spell. Oh, what an infinite and tender charm, like a
passing breeze, like a dying sunset of lilac rose and blue, a little sad
like the approaching night, which comes behind the sombre frame and out
of those impenetrable eyes! Those eyes, created by a few strokes from a
brush, hide behind them the mystery of that which seems to be and which
does not exist, which can appear in the eyes of a woman, which can make
love blossom within us.
The door opened and M. Milial entered. He excused himself for being
late. I excused myself for being ahead of time. Then I said: “Might I
ask you who is this lady?”
He answered: “That is my mother. She died very young.”
Then I understood whence came the inexplicable attraction of this man.